While Tom Hanks diligently stayed in self-isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus to avoid spreading it, there was nothing stopping him from a little act of kindness in the form of a Corona brand typewriter.
The epistolary friendship began when an eight-year old boy named Corona De Vries heard the news that Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, had tested positive for the virus and were in self-isolation in Australia. The boy decided to write Hanks a letter to check in on him. “I heard on the news you and your wife had caught the coronavirus,” Australia’s Channel Seven reported. “Are you OK?”
In the letter, the boy opened up to the actor telling him that while he loved his first name, kids at school had started calling him the coronavirus, which made him “sad and angry”.
The sweet note struck a chord with Hanks, who wrote back. “Your letter made my wife and I feel so wonderful!” Hanks wrote in a letter shared on Twitter. “You know, you are the only person I’ve ever known to have the name Corona – like the ring around the sun, a crown.”
“I thought this typewriter would suit you,” the Oscar winner, typewriter app creator, and noted typewriter enthusiast wrote. “Ask a grown up how it works. And use it to write me back.”
At the end of the letter, Hanks hand wrote: “P.S. You got a friend in ME!”, a reference to the line famously uttered by his character Woody in the film Toy Story.
In short, even in the midst of a pandemic, Tom Hanks continues to be really good at being Tom Hanks.
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